Iudaea Novel

The sun had set by the time we started back to the fort. Thankfully, the rain had stopped. We had killed seven brigands, taken three captive, and lost one of our own, Marius. Despite the victory, Marius’s death bothered me. I was thirty-five with seventeen years in the cavalry and I still wasn’t comfortable with the capriciousness of death. My belief in the gods and the afterlife weren’t strong enough. What made that arrow take his life and miss the rest of us? At what moment did Marius realize he had breathed his last breath? I looked at the boy, arms bound behind his back, sitting in the back of the cart. His entire life changed in an instance as he watched his father die. I shuddered thinking about my own sons having to deal with that image. I even felt pity for the crazy man with the axe. One moment he was probably the best fighter of his tribe, maybe even a devout father, but the next he was nothing more than a pile of carrion food. It all seemed so senseless.

I was relieved to see the firelight from the milecastles along the wall. Hadrian’s great wall looked more impressive at night when you couldn’t tell its true size and your mind made it bigger than it was. It looked ominous on the horizon with the torchlight reflecting off the smoke and mist rising from the cooking fires and the heat of the buildings. I imagined the wall was protecting the rest of the world from hell itself. The noise from inside the fort sounded like demons were preparing to flow from the gates, but the huge wooden gates opened to reveal a handful of soldiers and a group of modest buildings. The horses were handed over to slaves, captives were put under guard, and I headed to the barracks. I was tired and sore, not the least of which from Marius’s horse, or more likely from my saddle which didn’t quite fit the horse’s contours. His horse and Tempest couldn’t have been more different. Tempest was a stout snow white pony where Marius’s horse was a tall and sleek, ebony Arabian. Like Marius he was originally from Syria and was brought in to appease the Syrian horse archers that made up a number of the cavalry. He was too tall for my taste and made me feel uneasy in the saddle. But he did have a smooth gait and took commands well.

The stables and barracks were attached with each soldier’s horses next to his quarters. I took my armor off and washed up in a basin as my servant, Philo, fetched water and hay for the horses. Each soldier was entitled to three horses. I never kept more than two. Before today it was Tempest and her older brother Hector, who I had retired from service. Speratus didn’t like me keeping the old horse around, but I didn’t have the heart to send him to the dogs. He’d served faithfully just like his mother and sister. The other men derided me for my loyalty to the animals but if years in the cavalry taught me anything it was that these animals could be trusted more than the men. Especially the men Speratus recruited. He valued aggressiveness over intelligence and boldness over loyalty. It made us effective but our effectiveness often compromised our safety. Marius learned that lesson.

I cleaned my armor and went to the adjoining stables to check Philo and my new horse. Philo told me that Marius had named the horse Saad and that it meant something like gift in Marius’s native tongue. I grabbed a brush from the shelf and ran it down his back. Saad’s hair was smooth, his winter coat shed months ago. Tempest was a ruddier breed, her white coat coarse and matted most of the year. She wasn’t the first horse that I’d lost, but she was the one my boy’s had grown up with. Both my sons had learned how to ride with her and would take the news hard. Saad calmly ate his hay, content in his new quarters. I put the brush away and headed back to my room as Philo finished cleaning the stall. The room consisted of two beds, a couple of wooden trunks, and a small desk and chair. I shared the room with the third in command, the sesquiplicarius. His name was Tonius, and for the most part, he was a good soldier. He had stayed at the fort, but he helped to process the prisoners and inventory the stolen goods when we returned. Just as I sat down at the table to rest, he entered the room holding a small role of parchment.

“Here is the prisoner list, sir,” he said.

“Were they cooperative?” I said.

“They all gave us a name and age. I don’t know if they are telling the truth but the ages fit. They all seem to understand basic Latin and appear to be in good health.” He sat the parchment on the desk and then went to his bed.

I scanned the list looking for the boy’s name. The youngest one on the list was fifteen, and his name was listed as Brenden. My son’s face flashed in my mind. He wanted to be a soldier. It was the only example I’d ever given him. I don’t know why I expected anything else? How could this Brenden have turned out any different? I shook off my thoughts and gathered the prisoner list along with the amulet from the boy’s father and headed to Speratus’s quarters. I tapped on the door and went in. His room was twice the size of the others and had its own latrine and glass windows. It smelled of incense and fresh wine not the horseshit that lingered in the rest of the barracks. At the far end of the room, Speratus sat at an oak table covered in red cloth. Five candles of different heights sat at the front corners of the desk and lit up the room. He was busy rolling out a scroll, as I put the list and items on the table. I slumped down in a chair across from him. Our ranks meant little when it was just the two of us. I had known Speratus for as long as I could remember. It was hard to maintain any formality with someone who knew you as a child, who knew your fears, your failures, and your aspirations.

I waited for him to finish reading the report. The candlelight brought out the thin wrinkles coming from the corner of his eyes. We were getting old. The long days of riding and training were wearing on us. I shifted in the chair conscious of every ache and bruise. Speratus’s wavy blond hair was thinning and my dark hair was quickly turning gray. We were a long way from playing swords in the mud behind the stables. Finally, he looked up from the scroll.

“What do you make of this?” he said, handing the scroll over to me.

I read it over. The provincial governor, Julius Severus, was coming to the fort, and there would be a festival in his honor tomorrow.

“I hate these things. All that fuss just to stroke the man’s ego.” I said.

“Well, you’d better get used to them, especially if you ever plan to make it anywhere in the legion.”

“Who says I want to make it anywhere. What if I’m happy where I’m at? You go and kiss their rings and sing their praises. I’ll stay and clean out the stalls.”

“You’re a stubborn ass. You’d better not let any of the men hear you talk like that.”

I leaned forward and picked up the amulet off the desk. Blood in the grooves of the engraved letters highlighted them against the gold. I rubbed my thumb across the metal.

“You know I will go regardless. I’m just tired right now. I’ll feel better tomorrow,” I said.

“You’d better. I don’t want you talking like this in front of Metellus and the others. They’ll think I’ve lost control of my duplicarius.”

“You lost me years ago.” I threw the amulet back on the desk. “Trade this in with the other trinkets for some new equipment.”

I got up to leave.

He stood up with me, “Are you alright Coran? You seem more distant than usual.”

“No, I’m fine.”

“Is it about that Celt’s father?” He looked down at the amulet on the table.

“No, just tired,” I said.

But it did have something to do with that. In spite of all our years together, Speratus and I had different views of the world. The only thing was he knew what he believed, and I was only finding out what truly mattered to me.

I said goodnight and went back to my quarters. I changed into a clean tunic and sat down on the edge of the bed. I pulled a small bottle from under the bed and pulled the cork. I took a long drink. It was good wine, not the watered down swill the legion provided for rations. It was from Pompeii and I spent over two denarii a bottle on it in Londinium. The wine eased my nerves and made some of my aches go away. It also helped me go to sleep. It was on nights like these that I found it hardest to fall asleep. I rehashed every move I made against the brigands. I tried to focus on the things I did right but I always came back to my mistakes, how I let my guard down or got lucky. One day I might not be so lucky. One day the sword might be going into my chest. What would I be thinking in that moment? Would I be angry? Would I find peace? Or would I just piss myself?

The bottle was empty. I sat up and the room rocked from side to side. I checked for another bottle but there was nothing there. I lay back down and closed my eyes. The room was still spinning inside my head. Sleep finally came, but it wasn’t restful. It was always the same dream. It no longer frightened me like it did when I was a child, but I could do nothing but watch it unfold. The fire and the shadows, the screams and clanging of swords filled my head. I was too young to remember the details and it took me years to realize that what I was seeing wasn’t some nightmarish fantasy but fragments of my own memory mixed with the vivid descriptions of others. I was five years old and most of the garrison was fighting Picts up north leaving only a few dozen soldiers to guard the fort. My mother and I, like my own wife and children, were forced to live in the settlement outside the fort. The small settlement supported the fort and was made up of craftsmen, traders, farmers, and the unofficial, unrecognized families of the soldiers.

A group of Scots took the opportunity to attack the settlement at night knowing that most of the legion was away. They burned homes, murdered women and children, stole the livestock and emptied the granaries. My mother and I along with a few other families made it to the safety of the fort, but I saw many more that did not. The soldiers were ordered to stay inside the fort or risk giving it up. They had to watch as their friends and families were smoked out of their homes and run down like animals in the streets. Before we made it to the fort, I saw my mother’s sister, carrying my four year old cousin Ayla, hit from behind by a spear, killing her instantly. Ayla clung to her mother as the spearman brought his sword over her head. I woke up as the sword came down.

My blanket was on the floor, and I was cold. Pulling it over me, I was still shivering. Morning was hours away, and I couldn’t get the look on Ayla’s face out of my head. She didn’t understand what was going on. At that age I didn’t understand. What did we do to them to deserve that? What did little Ayla do to deserve that? I didn’t understand and no amount of my mother’s consoling could wipe that image from my mind. As I grew older there was little question that I was going to be a soldier and put an end to the barbarism. But as time passed I saw or heard the same story played out again and again and it wasn’t always the enemy who was barbaric.

My thoughts spiraled downward. Life was an endless millstone grinding men, women, and children into dust, into the soil. That is where we are all going to end up some day, so why fight it? What did it matter that some of us go earlier than others? What’s the point? What is the fucking point? I could feel my heart begin to race, the darkness of the room crushing in on me. I hated this time of night. I wanted to see the sun to be sure I’d see another day. My chest was heavy, my breathing unsteady. The more I tried to relax and clear the desperate thoughts the more anxious I became. Ayla’s innocent eyes flashed in my head, then the man with the axe, then the boy, the helplessness in their eyes. I tried to think about other things. I thought about playing with my boys, Macer and Justin. I thought about my wife, Aria. I tried to focus on her long black hair, her blue eyes, her smooth skin, the curve of her hips. My heart began to slow, and I felt like I could breath. I looked up at the timbers in the ceiling and thought of the bright summer days I spent hewing logs for the fort. Peeling off long curly tendrils of beech and alder, I formed the green wood into sturdy beams. I could smell the wood chips and feel the warm sun on my back. My body finally relaxed and I pictured cutting a mortise. I chiseled away at the soft wood. Before I finished the cut, I was asleep again.